"Dearest Family & Friends, My New Address: [Location Withheld]
I am now in [Name Withheld] 2rd ward. My companion is Elder [Name Withheld]. He is from south [Name Withheld] Here are some characteristics of [Name Withheld]( [Name Withheld] county). [Name Withheld] is home to [Name Withheld] (university of [Name Withheld]). [Name Withheld] county is the poorest county of all of [Name Withheld] and In the top ten poorest counties in America. Here in [Name Withheld] we talk to tons of homeless people. I nicknamed one of them hobo Sam. The crime rate is extremely high in the city of [Name Withheld]. Our area that we cover is the inner of the city. We usually travel on foot because of the chance of getting our bikes stolen. We knock on project homes (government housing) a lot. In the ward there are two parts [Name Withheld] inner loop and outer loop. Elder [Name Withheld] and I are part of the inner loop and the zone leaders are part of the outer loop. If you can imagine a ruined old city from the fifties, the flash forward that city to 2016 and that is what it feels like. The biggest problem for people that we work with is that none of them have cars and are lazy. They love what we share but it is hard for them to keep commitments. The ward members are tired of picking up investigators that flake out, so there are only one or two members that even have a little desire to pick up investigators. Well that's life. We had some very cool experience over the past week, one of them occurred during the first few hours in the area. So on Wednesday after noon Elder [Name Withheld] had a street planned for us to go tract. The first two houses were totally not interested at all but we kept on going. The third door we knocked on was this lady named [Name Withheld]. Apparently she lived in Utah for a few years. [Name Withheld]'s mother that lives with them is actually a long lost member. It gets cooler, so she works for [Name Withheld] and that is were my brother in law works for. It was awesome that we had that connection. Then some how we got on the subject of math and school and told her that we could help her kids with homework and stuff. And she agreed to have us come back in two days. On Friday when we went back over there she was very sick and told us to come back this next Thursday but we talked a little bit on her door step before she went back in her home. She told us that her and her husband read some of the restoration pamphlet as well as the Book of Mormon together and liked it. It was a very neat experience and a tender mercy of the lord. The fourth house....funny story time... At the forth house that we decided to knock, there was this big dog from us and the door. There was this ten year old girl getting the mail. We asked her if the dog was friendly and she told us that he was sort of friendly. That dog was not friendly at all! Elder [Name Withheld] tried to pet the dog, but as he got close he dog jumped up and attacked him. He bit him on is arm and scratched up his legs. Elder [Name Withheld] jumped back and started laughing. He was so scared. The little girl was freaked out that her dog bit some one. It was a unique experience to see. Later in the we we were in the same area and the owner of the dog stopped us on told us that he was sorry. that's life in [Name Withheld]. That was basically my week in the city of [Name Withheld]. (By the way lots of cities in [Name Withheld] are named after famous cities around the world). Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
Sincerely, Elder [Name Withheld]"
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2016 07:33PM by Elder Berry.
I can see giving a ride to an established church member who has fallen on hard times, but a new investigator who doesn't have any way to get to church? That doesn't make any sense to me. No wonder the ward members get tired of it.
Some churches in my area maintain vans to transport elderly and/or infirm members to and from church.
"She told us that her and her husband read some of the restoration pamphlet as well as the Book of Mormon together and liked it. It was a very neat experience and a tender mercy of the lord."
Probably read other stuff about the restoration as well and liked that it was a lie. Why they told him to come back next Thursday. They won't be home or someone will be ill again.